…persons required to contact Guyana Consulate; pensions to be sent to bank account

THE National Insurance Scheme (NIS) has instituted new measures for persons residing in the United States of America and Canada with regard to the verification of their status for the collection of pensions, according to a press release from the scheme’s Public Relations Officer, Dianne Lewis Baxter.

“The National Insurance Scheme remains very cognisant of the essential services that it provides to our pensioners and the effects an interruption of such services can have on the livelihood of this category of our stakeholders,” the release said.
It noted that in light of the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic and in an effort to maintain the integrity of their system, “the Scheme will be implementing the following measures with immediate effect.

(i) All pensioners residing in Canada and the United States of America are required to make contact with the respective consulate office in their country to have their status verified to facilitate the continuous payment of their pensions.”
It said that pensioners residing in Canada can contact the consulate General of Guyana Toronto during 9:00 hours to 12:00 hours, Monday to Friday, on telephone numbers 416-494-6040 or 416-4946059.

It said additional information can also be obtained from the website https://guyanaconsulatetoronto.com/
“Pensioners residing in the United States of America can contact the Guyana Consulate New York via telephone number 212-947-5110 or email address cgny@guyanaconsulatenewyork.org or batherly@guyanaconsulatenewyork.org,” the release said.

In addition, the NIS, on Thursday, advised that new applicants for pensions are required to fill out additional documentation to enable the scheme to remit monies to their bank accounts.

“The National Insurance Scheme wishes to inform all new applicants for pensions that along with the relevant documents for the specific pension, they are now required to complete a P3C for local applicants and a P3B for overseas applicants. This is to facilitate their pensions being sent to an active bank account of their choice,” the release said.

The Scheme noted that this new requirement is being implemented to ease the overcrowding that takes place at its offices, especially during pension’s week and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where social distancing is required.